


trees turning gold in the hills

by Anonymous



Series: you don't put your book down even after it ends [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Bloodline Thieves, F/M, Female Senju Tobirama, Marriage Proposal, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Peggy Sue Time Travel, Rescue, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-18 05:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20305963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Tobirama's captors don't live long enough to learn she doesn't have mokuton.





	trees turning gold in the hills

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mornelithe_falconsbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mornelithe_falconsbane/gifts).

The distraction, when it finally comes, sounds more or less the way a boss summons crashing through an unfortunate peasant village sounds. Tobirama is _not_ in a peasant village, but the dilapidated compound of this waning clan isn't actually much better and she's pleased to hear screaming and fighting over the sound of some roof or wall being crushed and splintered as easily as a sheet of nori. Several of the chakra signatures loitering outside the room she's being kept prisoner in dart away, soon followed by almost all of her actual guards. The barrier and chakra-draining seals around the room power down. 

This is a better distraction than anything Tobirama could possibly have engineered, and she immediately seizes the opportunity to twist and lash out at the man on top of her. Her elbow catches his cheekbone and bloodies his face. Her other hand follows quickly after to slam into his throat. 

He makes a pathetic choking sound as he stumbles back, forgets he'd dropped his pants earlier, and goes down in a partially-naked heap of limbs. 

Tobirama hates him. She hates him and his entire clan more than she's ever hated anyone, even the Uchiha, and it's not because of the way her muscles scream when she climbs to her feet and it's not because she's naked and it's not because any of the nasty things he'd said to her as he was shoving his pants down. 

No, she hates him because he's a moron. Because Senju Tobirama is better than this — _should be_ better than this, _had been_ better than this, _would be_ better than this. Even as a man, in her previous life, her interpersonal skills had been lacking and her appearance off-putting. The same is true in this life. Her intellect is all that she has, her one redeeming quality. Senju Tobirama is the Nidaime Hokage, something she's clung to for sixteen and a half years of her second life, and she loathes feeling stupid. 

Her bare foot slams into the man's crotch just as he's recovering from having his throat punched. Then she stoops down to pick up his low-quality kunai from his belt, dangling a set of kunai off the fingers of one hand and using the other hand to grab a single kunai and slit the man's throat. She doesn't exactly come out of it clean, but it's fine. No worse than the blood and gore she's seen before. 

The air is now tainted with smoke; some part of the compound is ablaze. Tobirama turns to the shōji doors that are now the only thing standing between her and the night air. Outside, a single enemy trembles, someone too weak to be pressed into the fight going on elsewhere in the compound, but thought to be sturdy enough to control one woman weakened by hunger and defeated by degradation and violence. 

Morons. The entire clan is full of _morons_, but at least it works in her favor. 

Tobirama — who is regrettably not _completely_ unaffected by a week of refusing to eat — slides the shōji open slowly to look at her opponent rather than trying to burst through the rice paper and take him by surprise. 

The enemy is a boy of about the same physical age as Tobirama. He has hair chopped just as short and haphazardly as Tobirama's, the kind of haircut one gives oneself when there is no one else to do it. He has a cheap sword and a patchwork equipment belt. He shakes when he sees her slide the door open, and his eyes stay on her face and her hands. He's young and badly trained and scared. 

Tobirama has never seen him before; he did not help with the clumsy torture she's weathered at the hands of her captors. If she walked away, she might never see him again. But she kills him anyway, takes his sword and his equipment pouch, and moves on while he's still bleeding out helplessly. 

This is no time for mercy. 

The pouch has room for kunai and the sword gives her a longer reach. Tobirama moves forward, heading away from the fire that's caught on the thatch and eves of several buildings and lit the southern half of the compound up like it's daytime. There's no time to pause and steal clothing or other supplies, even though Tobirama has eaten nothing since the first meal was heavily drugged, because killing intent has crept through the air following the smoke, killing intent like a wildfire pressed right up against Tobirama's brain. The small, animal part of her brain clamors for her to _run run run run_ and Tobirama obeys because she knows the taste of this killing intent. 

Uchiha Madara is here. 

* * *

Madara leaves the bloodline thieves' compound when it's still burning, knowing that the clanmates hanging far back to pick up stragglers will contain the fire. He had found the room where Tobirama was kept — the dead man with his pants down to his ankles — and now he follows a clumsy path through the underbrush. It's odd for Senju Tobirama to leave a trail Madara can follow at all, let alone in the dark, but Madara has no idea what state Hashirama's brother is in. 

Maybe some of the blood is Tobirama's. 

Several miles out, he finds Tobirama finally. He's standing above Madara on a thick tree branch, just barely lit by the moonlight, clutching a sword, wearing nothing but a ragged weapons pouch and a great deal of blood. He must have sensed the Uchiha who Madara knows are stationed ahead, evenly spaced, ready to cut down anyone who escapes Madara's initial attack. If he had kept going, they would probably have killed him without realizing who he is. 

The first thing Madara realizes, from the set of Tobirama's face, is that Tobirama expects to die here. The second thing he realizes, from the fact that Tobirama is very naked, is that this person who he had always taken for Hashirama's brother... is in fact Hashirama's sister. 

Madara owes Izuna quite a bit of money, but that's a concern best left for later. 

He expects to fight Tobirama. He's already thinking about how best to restrain her, or if maybe it would be kinder to let her stamina run out so that she drops on her own. 

But Tobirama says, "I'm tired, Uchiha," and throws her sword down to the forest floor, where it gets lost in the weeds and detritus. 

She looks just as exhausted as she sounds. She's still beautiful, but the left side of her face is a landscape of bruises in different stages of healing. She has a split lip. The hair just above her left ear is matted with blood. The rest of her has fared just as badly, suffering from injuries meant to humiliate and degrade rather than incapacitate. Madara regrets that he's already made sure that everyone who had a hand in this is dead, because looking at her now he would have preferred to do it slower. 

"This is a rescue, Senju-hime," Madara says, which is certainly the most respectful way Madara has ever referred to her or any other Senju. He puts his sword away and uses his most gentle tone, which from many failed attempts to connect with his clan he knows is not nearly gentle enough. But it will have to do. Madara didn't think to bring anyone with him. He hadn't expected to find Senju Tobirama _vulnerable_. 

"Why would the head of the Uchiha clan rescue Senju Butsuma's daughter?" she asks. Her eyes search him. And then she guesses, "The village?" 

_What village?_ Madara almost asks, but then of course there can only be one village in this context: Konoha. His and Hashirama's childhood dream, something Madara had set aside years ago. The dream of peace, the dream of safe children, the idea that had lit Hashirama's face up and set a fire burning in his eyes... 

Tobirama has that look, too. 

Tobirama believes. 

"Yes," Madara lies. "When we heard you had been captured..." 

"Leverage for a treaty?" 

Madara grimaces. Alright, he'd walked into that, but — "No." Not when Tobirama has so recently been brutalized and violated. Not when she's subtly shifted to lean against the trunk of the tree because her legs shake when they bear her weight completely. He casts about for another reason, and unfortunately lands on: "A marriage. To tie the clans together. Main house to main house." 

There's a long moment of silence. 

A _very_ long moment. 

"Are you mocking me?" Tobirama asks, her voice just barely above a whisper, tightly contained. 

"No," Madara says carefully. And then he says nothing more, because he has never had Izuna's way with words and he'll only dig himself in deeper if he keeps lying. 

In truth, Madara had heard about her capture because the clan keeps abreast of kidnappings and prisoners as much as possible, a safeguard against bloodline thieves. No matter who had been captured, the Uchiha clan would have come to wipe this clan out after hearing several of their members getting loose-tongued over liquor and talking about trying to breed a bloodline from a captured ninja. 

That the ninja matched Tobirama's description had only hastened Madara's decision. 

"I accept," Tobirama says. She makes it sound like it will be a death sentence, and then she topples out of the tree. 

Madara darts forward and catches her before she can hit the ground. She's not unconscious, but she's chill to the touch. Clammy against his hands, but with a fresh sweat breaking out across her forehead. Chakra exhaustion. Dangerous chakra exhaustion. 

He can't take her back to the Senju like this. She might not make it. They'll have to go... somewhere. 

Not back to the clan, they'd eat her alive. Izuna... Izuna would probably murder her in her sleep before even hearing anything about a potential marriage. Madara can't even leave with her by foot — he'll run into one Uchiha or another and word will reach Izuna quickly. They'll have to go somewhere else for Tobirama to recover. 

Madara briefly struggles to politely manhandle her while also tugging his coat off to wrap around her. Tobirama helps a little, lifting her arms and leaning into him. And all the while looks at him with a confused frown. Maybe doubting his story already, picking at the obvious holes in it, or maybe uncertain of his careful treatment of her but he... he can't bring himself to treat her roughly. 

He has to brush her hair out of her face. He has to say, "You'll be home soon," because she probably needs to hear it. 

And then he has to set her down at the base of a tree so that he can summon a hawk to take them to Sora-ku. They'll have to fly until the sun comes up, until the sky is orange and pink and brushing the tops of the trees with gold. 


End file.
